Ænir
by LethalFroggie
Summary: Maybe I’d never been afraid of the darkness after all. Pairings Riku Kairi Sora triangle. OCOC. Kingdom Hearts, Riku's POV.
1. Expositus Prolouge

* * *

I must trust you, for there is no time and for what I have done, I will soon be dead. 

My name is Octavia and I remember everything.

The True Keyblade Master is corrupt.

The Enigmatic Man has betrayed us.

The Tree is dying.

The truce is broken.

Burn this.

Stay alive.

…


	2. Expositus I

**

* * *

****Expositus I**

_(or, Reason Lost is Instinct Gained)_

… … … … …†

_Ay, many islands lie in the waters of wide Agony. _

_- Percy Bysshe Shelly_

_Once you start asking questions, innocence is gone. _

_- Mary Astor_

* * *

The sunset's beautiful!" 

It was, obviously. It always was. The half hemisphere of the sun sat like a lidded, hazy eye on the infinite band of blue horizon were the sky met the sea's end. The sky a galaxy of color- resonant amethysts, dynamic rose and fuchsia, and that tangerine color that's the same as the one dollar pina collatas they sell at the tourist resorts. That the same color, the same sunset the day before that, and the day before that…

The sunset was always perfect, the temperature always warm, the breeze always fresh…Perfect…perfectly boring. Perfectly mundane. Perfectly infuriating, watching it day after day waiting of a change, for something more.

Destiny Islands was perfect. It was also unchanging. Everything was the same, day after day, year after year; the weather the same, except went it stormed, nothing to stop the uninterrupted cycle of school, summer vacation, school…only slightly altered went you graduated and went to work, and then it was work, work, work…until you died. Destiny Islands was a place you could pass from birth to death without a single instance you could recall that was in any way different or special from any other.

And something, deep inside, told me it couldn't last. And, at the risk of sounding too cliché, too good to be true.

So, when someone said such a ridiculously romantic and flamingly gay statement as "The sunset's beautiful!" You can bet money that if, _if_ they managed to get a reaction from me, it would be the scorn and desertion of the acidic bile of my wrath. Something like…

Like…

Like…

Hell with it.

Oh God, I'm losing my touch.

Of course, there is one girl who can say this and it not be annoying…only one person who ever cheesy word comes out sounding…not cheesy at all, romantic but not…of my wrath-worthy. The one girl that is making me lose my sarcastic touch.

And you know what?

I'm not minding it at all.

Destiny Islands is perfect. The people, on the other hand…

First, there's Sora. Socialite extraordinaire and for whom all children with ADD should aspire to be. He's either insane or was dropped on his head as a kid…or both. He's also my best friend. We've know each other since kindergarten and I don't think there's any way we could be more different. I may be the Ice man, but sugar has nothing on this guy…

"Tell me, why are you taking the ferry again" he asked.

God, give me strength…

"because you blew a hole in my boat" I said for the thousandth time.

"did not" he said

"did too" I shot back. We're both teenagers and we still do this. Well, actually we usually move on (or back- depends on how you look at it) onto mono-syllabic grunts…

"uh-uh"

"uh-huh"

"uh-uh"

"huh"

"uh"

"huh times infinity" I said. Finally, a use for high school Algebra.

"uh times infinity to the infinity power." Sora replied proudly.

That one was new. "There's no infinity to the infinity power! Infinity's as high as you can go"

"You're just mad because you didn't think of it" he said smugly.

"Don't change the subject." I said. You know that saying, 'opposites attract'? I have not heard a more widespread lie since when Sora and I believed that there was toxic gas in the center of golf balls. We fight about _everything_… usually with swords and not words.

"Besides, what else could have burned a 3 inch hole in the bottom of my boat" I pointed out. Somewhere in the universe, a giant scoreboard lit up, saying "Riku: 1, Sora 0".

"Exploding fish"

Why, after all this time, did he still believe that story? I rolled my eyes and smacked him upside the back of the bush he called a head. "There's no such thing as exploding fish."

"Yes there is. Remember the time I caught one" he said, arms flying everywhere.

"That's because you baited your line with a cherry bomb with a waterproof fuse. I still can't believe that stupid fish fell for..." I covered my mouth with my hand. Stupid vocal fireworks. Always cropping up at the most inconvenient times. Now, I had no problems with puberty- it was a nice change, being taller than everyone else and _actually_ having muscles…but when it did that, it didn't leave me feeling all warm and fuzzy with the world.

On the other hand, speaking of opposites attract…

Kairi grinned. "vocal fireworks again, Riku"

"Shaddup." I murmured darkly. Or at least I hoped…kinda hard to sound threatening when you sound like the 'family jewels' are being crushed by a too-tight jock strap. Luckily for them, there was nothing handy to throw.

Suddenly, Sora jerked like someone had shoved a tazer up his ass and looked at me guiltily. I knew that look. When we used to go to school together, he'd have that look approximately 5 minutes after they left the school and realized he didn't have his lunchbag. You could set your watch to it. He'd forgotten something. I could only hope to whatever deity was listening it wasn't my ferry pass…

He rummaged around, various bits of years-old trash falling from the pockets. I couldn't help but make a little bit of a face. I know I can be a little anal about things being neat and organized but come on, I'd seen that wad of gum in his pocket three years ago and it had been old even then. Not finding whatever he was searching for, he turned to Kairi and was about to ask for whatever it was when she simply handed it to him, a small smile on her face. Sometimes they just seemed to know what each other was thinking- It gave me a small twinge of jealousy. They didn't finish each other's sentences- yet.

"Tada!" Sora exclaimed, presenting it with a flourish. I blinked. Curiosity killed the sarcastic cat…kid. "What is it?"

"Uh…" Sora trailed off scratching the back of his head. "Kairi made it. Why don't you ask her?"

Kairi laughed. "It's my lucky charm. It's made out of thalassa shells…for a safe journey."

I hate to use these words, but my heart skipped a beat, stopped for a moment, and all that good stuff. Even in the land of the cliché-a-phobic, some things just gotta be described as a cliché.

I hadn't expected her to lean over and fasten it around my neck. Next thing I knew our faces were inches apart, and her fingers were on the back of my neck fastening the necklace around my neck. Her fingers brushed my skin and made me hair stand on end…in a good way.

It was just then that I noticed, for what seemed like the first time but had actually been many times, just how purple her eyes were. She smiled and cocked her head, making her gorgeous amethyst eyes sparkle. Before I met Kairi, I didn't think people could have purple eyes. I think I could have a separate love affair just with Kairi's eyes. But…I do have a reputation to retain, right? Ice man. Not that it made it any easier to stop with just keeping my hands on her shoulders…to steady myself. It was hard.

She always wore that necklace and I figured it was the last thing she had of whatever world she had come from. Kairi wasn't from Destiny Islands, which made her even weirder than Sora…if that's even possible. "No, no you keep it. I'll just loose it…" I tried to take it off… but the clasp got tangled in my hair. Stupid hair…I winced, yanking on it and only managing to pull of few hairs out.

"Why don't you just cut it short" Kairi asked.

"Because I look like a monkey with it short. And my ears stick out."

"Can't argue with you there, Riku." Sora said, laughing. I resisted the murdering urges.

"Sora, that wasn't very nice." Kairi reproached.

"I can't help it." Sora said. "He's just so vain, so it's so easy to..."

"You know what? Just keep it on." Kairi said, laughing. She had a nice laugh- soft and gentle, but still a laugh. I don't like to laugh a lot. My laugh's like me; sarcastic, and as hard to swallow as glass shards in hot sauce with a side of Peruvian death peppers. Doesn't matter how funny the joke is, when people hear that laugh they assume I'm laughing at _them_. So I don't laugh at other people's jokes and people don't laugh at mine. "Before you go bald. You can give it back to me tomorrow if you really don't want it."

"By the way, what where you two doing that blew a hole in your boat" Kairi asked.

Still fiddling with the necklace, I answered. "It was New Year's Eve and we where bringing fireworks over to the island. You remember that gargantuan roll of black cats; the thunder bomb, 8,000 count strip"

"Sora blew _that_ up in your boat" Kairi asked with a horrified gasp.

"No, thank _God_, or else I would have _no_ boat and we'd probably both be dead. He blew up one of the 350 count strips. We didn't think it would be that powerful, but it blew a hole in the boat and we ended up swimming to the island. I almost killed him that time…"

"Eh-he..." Sora said nervously. "you told me if I didn't drown _you'd_ drown me." Realizing something, he turned, pouting, to Kairi. "Hey...That wasn't very nice either" he whined.

"Yeah, but you deserved it." Kairi said. "We didn't have any fireworks this New Year"

Sora gasped in mock horror. "I can't believe you would value a bunch of fireworks over my life, girlfriend" he said in a mock-gay voice. He let out a "hump" and turned around, his back to them. He heard Kairi and I snicker behind him.

_What a clown_. I thought.

"Sora, quit being such a baby." Kairi said playfully.

He turned around and in the same mock-tone addressed her. "Oh, I can't stay mad with you forever. Girlfriends" he said, holding out his arms for a hug.

Shaking with suppressed laughter, Kairi hugged Sora. And jealously rears its ugly head.

Plopping down between Kairi and I, he shaded his eyes with his hand and looked out over the water. "The ferry's here." He announced.

"Well, I've got to go." I said, standing up. "Thanks for waiting with me, guys."

"See ya" Sora said cheerfully, legs swinging over the edge of the pier. Kairi smiled shyly and waved goodbye. "Remember." She said. "Tommorow's the big day. Make sure you get plenty of rest, because we leave early."

"I came up with this plan in the first place, remember" I grinned cheerfully- or as cheerfully as I can get. You know, both sides of the mouth up, but _without_ looking like you're high on ecstasy. "Don't worry about me. Worry about the lazy bum"

"hey, I'm not a lazy bum" Sora yelled to my retreating back.

…

Sunsets on Destiny Islands are (mercifully, in my opinion) short, because Destiny Islands doesn't have the pollution of the big cities in the air. It's getting there though. It's become such a popular tourist spot, what with being _perfect _and all that, that it's only a matter of time before it becomes like an amusement park; cheap, dirty, and filled with people you don't want to share air with.

But maybe I'm just bitter.

I've always preferred night. Everything looks different, new. Like you've stepped out from the ordinary world into a different one, a weirder reflection of it. And it's never the same; the stars are always moving in the sky. Stars have always been a fascination to me, ever since Kairi told me they're really other worlds. But we're also taught that they're burning balls of cosmic dust. Either way, they're fascinating. They're so far away that it takes million's of years for their light to reach us. When you look at the stars, you're really seeing that star as it was over a million years ago. You're looking back in time. And for that light to be that strong; it travels thousands of light-years and millions of years just to reach us. We can't even conceive the forces inside a star. And there are stars out there that have been around since the beginning of time and will still be there when it ends.

People are always comparing love to stuff like that. To grains of sand and stars in the sky…but never to the stars themselves. Grains of sand and stars in the sky are finite, but the light stars give off is endless. Loves supposed to break all chains and know no bounds, like a star's light.

God, look at me babble. I sound like Sora. But don't worry, I'm going somewhere with this. The point is that the stars are disappearing from the sky. Astrologists just say it's a rash of supernovae, and that's ok if they're just burning dust but…if Kairi's right…it's something more serious.

Kairi, Kairi, Kairi. Bet you're all sick of hearing about her, huh? Somehow my mind just keeps coming back to her, like some kind of demented metal boomerang.

Who's in charge here, anyway? What with your brain going off and doing something you tell it not to do, does that mean your brain has its own brain?

No wonder we're all crazy.

It was a warm evening, so the whole family- all 7 of us- ate outside on the patio furniture on the dock. We had soft-shell crab sandwiches hot enough to boil away the sea. After diner Mom and Dad went to the movies. I remember when Dad was combing his hair in the hallway mirror he was grinning so hugely I though that his molars might pop out from the strain and hit one of us.

Neither of them are really my Mom and Dad, but I was so young when my parents died they might as well have been. They're really my aunt and uncle; they raised me and my younger twin brothers after my mom and dad died in a car wreck, along with their two older twin daughters.

Both my parents were Native Destiny Islanders, the original inhabitants of Destiny Islands before people emigrated from the mainland- kind of like Indians. My whole family has that Native Destiny Islander dark brown skin, eyes, and hair- except for me. That makes for interesting family reunion pictures.

So after my parents and our two older sisters left (the 'cursed ones' as the twins call them, being off at some party with their boyfriends) But before they left, they hired a babysitter to watch us.

Yeah, you'd think that they'd trust me to take care of the twins by now, but this precaution stems back to when the twins and I decided one night to eat cat food and drink beer to see what they tasted like. They haven't left me alone with the twins since- especially when they told Mom that cat food tasted better than her cooking.

Not that I was complaining- the babysitter was Kairi. And I had some time to fix the _giant hole_ Sora blew in my boat.

Now, with most small holes you can just hammer a piece of cork into the hole and seal off the edges with wax and pray your siblings don't find it and pull it out. But no, the Powers That Be would not let it be that easy for me. The hole was large; about six inches. That meant the boards that had been damaged had to be taken out and replaced with new ones. A combination of pitch and rope fibers then had to be pushed in between the boards to render it waterproof. I had already done that. The only thing left was to spread varnish over the new boards to protect them from the water.

So I sat on the beach and looked out over the sea, spreading varnish over the whole surface of the boat. A storm was brewing; fat, black clouds hung heavy with rain in the air, the nexus of the storm over Party Island. Lightning lit up the sky and I had a feeling that it would wake the twins up and scare them, so I probably should go inside right now.

* * *

_Dear Diary, _

_Tomorrow's the big day! Tomorrow we leave_

I tapped the eraser of my pencil against my chin as I lay on Riku's bed. The twins were tucked in, sound asleep. While Riku was outside working on his boat, I had the house to myself. I've always wondered why his parents don't trust him alone with the twins. Something about beer and cat food, I've heard.

I've written about this subject many times in my diary. I had come here to write about something different. Something I vaguely sensed might be important.

I've always been a big believer in destiny. Since I first woke up in the mayor's house and was told, that of all the worlds I could have gone too, I had arrived in a world called _Destiny _Islands.

It was like Destiny was giving me a slap to my sleepy, waterlogged young self. I didn't come here by chance- for purposes I don't know, I was _sent_ here.

I crossed out the pervious lines and began again.

_Dear Diary, _

_I'm in love with my two best friends. _

I looked at my hand as if it had somehow gotten a mind of it's own. I had finally found the world for the feelings I had for my friends, feelings that had long ago stopped being purely platonic. Whatever word I had expected to use, love wasn't it. Love, I thought, was too stereotypical, too direct and too public to express what I felt. And yet, somehow, love was what I felt.

_A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness. _

Soulmates. I guess I believed in that too.

_I shugged uncomfortably under a 12-year old Riku's gaze. I didn't want to show him this. He'd think it was stupid, even if Sora said he though it was cool and dragged me over to Riku to get me to show him. _

_I cut the deck of cards and held it to Riku. "Ok, pick a number." _

"_42."_

"_Um, Ri, a deck doesn't have 42 cards…" _

_He smirked. "Oh yeah, forgot. Well, then 14." _

_I picked the top 14 and dealt them out into their separate suits. I pointed to the hearts deck. It had a queen of hearts on top. "This means that you're going to marry you're soulmate."_

"_There's no such thing as a soulmate." _

_I looked at him, startled. Of course they're such things as soulmates!_

_He smiled, a real smile that he only saved for me. He jerked his thumb in Selphie's direction. "Look at Selphie, Tidus, and Wakka." _

_Those three had a kind of love triangle thing going on. She'd date one for a while, then the other, unable to decide. She apparently 'loved' them both the same. _

"_Which do you think is her soulmate?" he questioned. Even back then he was frustratingly logical. "How can you tell which is which? The world's full of too many people for everyone to have a soulmate. They'd never find the one that they're supposed to be with. They'd always be unhappy." _

_I sighed. Arguing with him was useless. He was too mule-headed. _

"_Who do you think your soulmate is?" _

_I looked up at him, surprised. He was looking at me with that intense look again. _

Riku was…well, Riku. It was not fair that he had to look so infuriatingly hot every moment we were together. When his white hair was down and blowing in the wind, it almost looked like an angel's halo. But I've seen more than enough of his devilish side. His dry humor, sarcastic jokes, and antisocial tendencies were all in good fun, except when we were the brunt of his ire. Nice people called him strong-willed. Those he managed to tick off called him stubborn and opinionated. He had a reputation as an iceman.

Sometimes he even scared me. He had a temper that, while hard to irk, when roused was frightening in it's intensity and length. I remember several instances when he'd yelled at me and turned a cold shoulder to me for days, and Sora would come over and hold me when I cried. I might not cry now at his coldness, but it still hurts deeper than if it had been Selphie or even Sora. Sometimes I thought that if Sora and Riku had something substantial to fight over, they'd be able to cut each other's throats without batting an eye, so great had their competition gotten as how stubborn both were to be better.

But I was the only one he ever smiled for. With Riku I could talk about anything- friends, school, ect.- and even if he didn't know anything about it (like he'd ever admit to that) or just couldn't stand the topic, he still listen, and with none of his usual sarcasm. And there was something mysterious about him, something that intrigued me and yet at the same time set of warning sirens in my head.

But Sora was…different. While I could talk to Riku about anything, it was Sora that I shared my innermost secrets, my deepest, darkest fears. And he, in turn, shared his own with me. Sora could make me laugh in a way no one else could. He was just so…innocent, truthful, and honest. Even he was prone to occasional bouts of wisdom, despite his innocent attitude. He was the first person I met on Destiny Islands.

_It was cold, wet, and dark. I was sitting on something I'd only seen in books; a beach._

_There was a symbol burned on the skin over my heart. It resembled the handprint of a small child, with a spiral for a palm and lines for the splayed fingers. The heat was so intense the burn actually felt cold. _

_I closed my eyes, lingering on the edge between consciousness and unconsciousness. Somewhere far off I heard voices. Then I felt hands, supporting me and carrying me to safety. I felt something warm and fleecy wrap around me, in addition to a pair of arms. _

'_She's not waking up.' came the voice of the person who wasn't holding me. _

_I opened my eyes a fraction to try to see the person who had rescued me. The only thing I noticed about him was his hair- it was a masterpiece that defied every law of physics Newton ever believed in. _

_He considered something for a moment. 'Tell anyone about this and I'll _kill_ you, Okay?"_

'_Sure, whatever you say.' Said the other one with a touch of amusement. _

_And then the boy, who later turned out to be Sora, began to sing. _

_Æfond kiss, and then we sever;Æ fareweel, and then forever.  
Deep in heartwrung tears I'll pledge thee, warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.  
Who shall say that fortune grieves him, while the star of hope she leaves him:  
Me, næ chearful twinkle lights me; dark despair around benights me.  
I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy,_ _Næthing_ _could resist my Nancy.  
But to see her was to love her; Love but her and love for ever.  
Had we never lov'd_ _sæ_ _kindly, Had we never lov'd_ _sæ_ _blindly!  
Never met, or never parted, We had ne'er been broken hearted.  
Faretheewell thou first and fairest! Faretheewell thou best and dearest!  
Thine be ilka joy and treasure, Peace, Enjoyment, Love and Pleasure!  
__Æ_ _fond kiss, and then we sever! __Æ_ _fareweel, Alas, forever!  
Deep in heartwrung tears I'll pledge thee, warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee!_

_There was a pause. _

"_I think that may have just done her in." the other boy said. 'where in the heck did you _learn_ that?'_

_The boy holding me blushed fiercely. 'We learned it in choir…"_

_I opened my eyes fully. The boy with the mop on his head let out an exclamation of triumph. I noticed that he had very blue eyes. _

_Then I looked to the other boy. He had eyes somewhere between green-blue and turquoise- the color of the sea on a summer day, as well as unusual white hair. _

'_Are you okay?' he questioned. He was starring at me intensely and I shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. _

'_We made soup." The brown-headed boy said nervously. 'Or at least, we tried…" he handed me a bowl of brown liquid. Not haute cuisine, but at least it was hot. I had a spoonful and did my best not to gag. 'Thanks." _

"_You should really get that looked at." The white-haired boy said. At first I though he was talking about the burn, but realized he was pointing to my neck. There was a nasty, ragged cut across my throat. "It look's like someone tried to cut your throat." _

_My hand instantly flew to my neck. The white haired boy pulled out a first aid kit and began bandaging my burn and wound. I leaned against the brown-haired boy's chest, and he absentmindedly threw his arm over my shoulder. I felt oddly safe with him, despite our compromising position- after all, we were only five- what did we know about PDA? While the brown haired boy stared off into space, the white-haired one no-so-gently prodded me with iodine and questions._

_And every single one I could only answer with 'I don't remember." I didn't remember anything, not even my own name. _

'_You don't remember your own _name_?" the blue-eyed boy questioned, disbelieving. I nodded and looked at my feet. "Well, we'll have to give you one. How 'bout Kairi?" _

_The white-haired boy rolled his eyes. "She's not a pet, Sora. If she has amnesia, it will probably last only a few days, a few weeks tops. Unless the memory loss is due to repressed memories due to trama, in which case it could last many years. I don't think she appreciates you just giving her a new name." _

_I sensed a fight coming about. "No, no, Kairi's fine. Kairi's a nice name." _

"_Ok then Kairi." the white-haired boy said. 'let's take you to the mayor's house." He lead, and the brown-haired boy and I talked, or rather he told me about the mayor's wife, who kept lots of candy around, and I listened. I wondered what kind of woman would give this kid any type of sugar. _

I sighed and looked out the window. That's when I noticed the rain pelting against the windows, and the thunder lighting up the sky.

I heard the door slam as Riku walked inside. Shoving my dairy into my back pocket, I raced down the stairs.

Riku was standing in the kitchen, soaked and dripping on the floor. He'd not stopped working even in the rain. "Riku, did you or Sora tie up the raft?" I asked worriedly.

Riku stood still for a moment, then broke out in a string of curses you could go to hell just for listening to. "Call Sora. I'll get our boats ready."

I nodded. There where 3 islands in the Destiny Island chain; Town Island, the largest, where all the citizens, including Riku and Sora, lived, Party Island, and Mayor Island, the small island were the mayor's family lived. So I had to come over here by boat.

I ran downstairs and called Sora. Knowing him, he'd rush off the instant he'd seen the storm and try to secure the boat himself, even when he knew it took two people to do it.

Sora's mom answered. "He's upstairs for the moment. I'll call him down to dinner…that'll get him running." She said with a touch of humor.

I waited a moment while she called him down. When she picked up the phone again, there was panic in her voice.

"He's not upstairs, and the window's open! He can't have gone to Party Island- he'll be killed in this weather!"

I did my best to try and calm her down. Riku ran in again and wrote a short, hasty note, describing what we were doing. I hung up.

"Sora's gone to Party Island and his mom's having a coronary." I said. Riku shrugged. "When is she not, really? I'm leaving. Take care of the twins." He said, heading out the door.

I grabbed his arm. "Hold on! Do you really think you're going in that storm alone? It takes two to secure the raft!"

He hesitated. He knew I was right. He also knew that he didn't want to let me go.

"I can row a boat _just _as well as you can." I continued.

"The twins…" he trailed off.

"Are asleep. They can take care of themselves."

He paused. 'Fine.' And continued on his way, sulking. I smiled and followed after him. Sure he'd sulk and whine in his own quiet way, but he'd get over it.

We pulled out our boats and rowed into the storm.

* * *

The raft was gone. 

Kairi and I were sitting across from each other, in the mouth of the Secret Place.

Kairi was watching the rain- it was all you could see out there, a torrential wall of water, raining cats and dogs in biblical proportions.

And I was watching her. She's shivering and cold, which makes me bitterly wish I'd remembered to bring a jacket so she would be warm. Even when half drowned, she still manages to look beautiful.

Not to mention the fact that her wet clothes cling to _every_ curve of her body.

What? Don't look at me like that. I am a guy, after all.

"Do you think we can go now?" She asked "No." Still raining too hard.

Sighing, she got up and began walking to the back of the cave. Not wanting to be left behind, I followed.

I'd almost forgotten about this place. It was sort of our hangout, our secret clubhouse, except we allowed girls to come in. We'd squat down in the sand and bring our sloped foreheads together to think up trouble- like apes, but with less body hair.

What sort of trouble would we cook up, you ask?

My favorite was where you'd lick jolly ranchers and stick them to somebody's window. Once they dried, the only way to get rid of them was to replace the glass- or stand outside with the hose on, dousing you window till they dissolved. And even then, you'd have rectangular white spots still on the glass were you'd stuck the jolly ranchers.

That was fun for a few years, but after a while the adults caught on and stopped giving out jolly ranchers for Halloween. And you can't very well _peppermint _somebody's windows, now can you?

Another was getting another kid to eat something gross. Why watch Fear Factor when you can just go out and get your friends to do the same things, only cheaper? I once got Sora to eat a loogie his dog hocked up for a quarter. And of course, there was the beer-and-catfood episode with the twins.

But nothing beats fireworks. Loud, noisy, and potentially destructive. 50 black cats made a strip. 50 strips made a roll. 5 rolls made a stick of dynamite.

Kaboom!

We used to chuck 'em down the sewers to see if we could dent the concrete. Then Dad saw us doing it. But did he stop us?

No. He taught us how to build a mortar. And then we chucked that into the sewer. Figured we try to do it anyway, and we might as well do it in such a way that we wouldn't blow off a hand.

There's always a chance you could blow off a bit when you fool around with fireworks. I remember one time I blew off a fingernail fooling around with cherry bombs. Sora burned off both his eyelashes and his eyebrows making a flamethrower out of matches and deodorant spray.

I crouched down to look at the drawings. Their was a picture of a Chocobo I'd drawn on one of the rocks, and that picture that Sora had drawn of him and a papou fruit that proved once and for all he had no future as an artist.

And then there was the mysterious door. The one that was always locked.

I leaned against it, lounging. Then, under my weight, the door moved a fraction of and inch inward.

It was unlocked. I grabbed the handle and pushed. The humidity had made it stick, so I pushed into it with my shoulder. Suddenly, the door popped open.

"Kairi?"

"You've got to see this…"

... ... ..._(finis) _

* * *

Adalai- gah! I know this is horribly terribly late, but I hope it was worth the wait. I've just been really busy…Don't worry, the next chapter will have Octavia in it. 

Also, in the prologue, a tatterdemalion is someone who is dressed in rags. More original than saying 'the hooded man' over and over again.

Also, the song Sora sings is the tenor solo to _Ae Fond Kiss_. I love that song. especially all the 'æ's

Zena- heh…what about us?

Stinky- yeah, we weren't in the prologue…

Dante- have you been cheating on us with another muse!

_(All three muses tackle Adalai)_

Zena- Review and decide whether Adalai dies or just gets scratched up badly…

Adalai- I swear I'm innocent! Ow! No claws!

Stinky- and thanks to those who already reviewed!

Lyphe

Viktor Martin

DeathDragon66


	3. Expositus II

* * *

**Expositus II**

_(or, Tree of Possibilities)_

… … … … …†

_Poems are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree_.

_- Ben Johnson_

_Care is taken that trees do not grow into the sky._

_- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe_

* * *

There are places of darkness in the world, paths on which it is unwise for humans to walk.

Everything was quiet, frozen. It was a world without sound, filled with something much more than just lack of noise; tangible silence, in its truest form. You could feel it in the air, like humidity on a hot summer day, ringing in our ears like a high-strung glass, ready to shatter. A silence so loud, it drowned all other sounds.

I looked at the raging storm outside, and at the quiet beach, like a child holding its breath, and stepped through the door. There was no invisible barrier, no obstacle, no sudden rush of wind to mark this barrier between the worlds. It was as if I'd only stepped into an empty room.

I let out a breath I hadn't known I'd been holding. I was…disappointed, a little bit. It seemed too easy somehow. I'd expected…well, maybe not parades or parties or natural disasters, but at least something. After all, I was the first Destiny Islander that had stepped foot on another world.

"Kairi?"

"Yes?"

I fumbled blindly in the dark until I felt Kairi's hand, smooth and warm. I could feel the bones of her fingers and of her palm, small and deceptively fragile, but deft and, if she ever wanted them to be, viciously accurate. There were like bird bones, smooth, thin and endlessly fascinating, and I wanted to roll them between my fingers like river pebbles and erase all the callousness, the roughness on them of island life. They didn't seem to belong there, in my mind. They weren't from this world, but were meant for the pursuits of another.

"What do you see?" She asked, hesitantly.

"I'm not sure." I said.

There was a glint in the sand by the water's edge. There was a bottle, and in it a message. I looked down the shoreline and saw, suspended between water and land, more bottles, reflected flashes of moonlight in the sand. Kairi wandered down the beach, collecting them.

I gently tipped the aged parchment out of the bottle. The paper was blank.

"They're all blank." Kairi said softly behind me, more papers in her hands. Shoving the paper into my pocket, I jumped on top of the tallest rock I could find, to get a clear view of the island.

As different as it was from Destiny Islands, the layout of the island was exactly the same. It was so familiar, it was creepy. Off to the left was a small rock island, just like my island on Destiny Islands, except there was no plank bridge connecting it to the mainland. The island was the exact shape and size as Party Island, but instead of the rocks and buildings that were on Party island, the ground was completely flat and lifeless and the surface of the moon. Occasionally, a bunch of crystals, lumped together in what vaguely represented a tree, twisted brokenly out of a heap of slag. In the center, where the secret cave would have been, stood an enormous tree, the size of the old oak on Party Island. A small entrance, the size of a small cave, stood nestled in it's roots.

I leaned against one of the crystal trees behind me. Weird. It was all so weird. Wyrd Islands, I guess I'd call it. The named seemed to fit.

"I'm gonna go check out that tree." I said to Kairi.

As I got closer, I relized how massive the tree was in comparison. The I stuck my head into the hole. It was blacker than a telemarketer's heart.

"Throw a stone down to see how deep it is." Kairi whispered beside me. I grabbed a big pebble and threw it down into the hole. I never heard it hit bottom.

"Anything down there!" I yelled. It echoed and re-echoed but eventually was swallowed by the darkness.

"Okay. Who wants to go down the dark hole into the bottomless abyss first?" I said. Not waiting for an answer, I grabbed the lip of the tunnel and peered down. It wasn't the dark that bothered me. The dark I could deal with. I just had a little problem with small, enclosed places. Like tight, narrow tunnels that you had no idea what was at the end of them. That you had to lower yourself down on your back and get your ass bitten off by whatever was at the bottom. That was what bothered me. I value my ass. And I prefer that it stay firmly attached to my rear.

"You're not seriously going down there?" Kairi whisper-yelled, grabbing my arm.

"Don't worry about me." I said. "I'm ice man, remember? Impervious to everything- heat, feelings, bullets, monster stomach acid…I'll be fine, I promise." I added in at the end, seeing the look on her face get graver.

I took a deep breath. "Kairi?"

"Yes?"

"If I don't come back up, assume something ate me."

I fell down the hole and hit bottom on my back, rolling to a stop. I sneezed and coughed, clearing centuries-old dust from my nose. Yuck. I looked around. The only light came from the tunnel above, and the rest of the room, deep within the tree's roots, was swallowed in darkness.

The light from above flickered for a moment, as if something had passed in front of it. Kairi.

"Are you okay down there?" She yelled.

"Yup." I said. "Jump." She paused. "I'll catch you." I said. "I promise."

There was a scraping sound, and a whoosh, as Kairi camp down. I managed to catch her- sort of. I ended up knocked down, on my rear, with Kairi sprawled across my lap.

I froze. She did too. I stared at her, and she looked away, blushing. Have you ever had something beautiful enough you felt you could stare at all day? That's how I felt staring at Kairi. I cleared my throat and both of us snapped out of our trance.

She scrambled off. I sat there in the dirt, kneading my forehead. Mixed signals. I was getting mixed signals, giving mixed signals. This was driving me insane.

We sat in the dark for what seemed like an eternity. Uncomfortable silences can do that to your sense of time.

"Light." I said, weaving magic on my fingers into a small ball of warm, golden light. It drifted in front of us, illuminating the chamber, carved deep into the heart of the tree.

It had obviously been abandoned for quite some time. Dust, undisturbed and layered thick, lay draped evenly on every surface of the small room. Though the ceiling and the walls were carved straight into the heartwood of the tree itself, the floor was wooden planks. Save for a single sheet of paper, yellowed and solitary in its corner, a magnifying glass, and a gash in the floorboards, where someone had hacked a hole with an ax, the room was empty.

I pulled out the ax, still embedded in one of the floorboards. I saw a dull black gleam from somewhere inside the hole. Stone? Obsidian? Hefting the ax, I brought it down and began to clear away the planks. Little by little, something emerged from under the floorboards. A circular basin, made of shiny black stone. I ran my fingers over the engravings in the bowl. It was some kind of tree motif, with the center being a spiral, branching off into infinity. Among the leaves was a strange symbol, repeated over and over again, of an outstretched hand with a spiral for a palm. The raised ring around the bowl depicted some kind of timeline, a visual history of some sort, divided into four sections. The first showed a group of people- winged, and it seemed part plant, emerging from the branches of a massive tree, that itself seemed to come out of a massive fissure. Order emerging from chaos. The second showed a winged figure opening a box with the same hand-spiral symbol on the lid. The third showed two different races- one winged, one part plant, in the middle of a huge battle. The forth showed the plant people in chains, with heart-shaped holes on their chests- as if to signify that their hearts had somehow been taken from them. The whole scene seemed to be bathed in some sort of light; lines of light snaked from the holes in the plant people's hearts down to the tree, and inside the tree to a sort of crack, or fissure. The other people, the winged people, hovering over the plant people, had balls of light inside their chests. Those balls seemed to give off more light.

But there was something else inside the basin. It was a small tree, the same type of tree as the one we were in, sitting inside a glass case. But unlike the one we where in, this one seemed to have fruit- small, glass spheres with a multi-hued core.

I picked up the case carefully and placed it on the floor. I gently took off the lid and picked one of the glass marbles off the branch. I picked up the magnifying glass. It was carved out of white bone and had a distinctly futuristic feel to it. The lens, too, was tinted and odd color; a sort of gold hue. I peered at the multi-hued dot inside the crystal sphere.

The multi-hued dot turned into a massive explosion of gold energy, expanding rapidly through the crystal sphere. It filled it, and left behind nothing but blackness. For a moment, there was nothing but the darkness, but then, out of the corner of the lens, a tiny dot of white-hot light appeared, exactly like a star. Then another. And another. They clumped together and began to swirl, forming a tiny galaxy.

I had just seen what most scientists would give their right arm to see, spend their lives just trying to guess what it might look like. A tiny Big Bang. The creation of a new World. As I watched, galaxies formed and died, black holes were born, stars exploded into supernovas, and quasars burst into bright, violent displays of light. It was a tree that could make new worlds. It was impossible, unimaginable- even in my wildest dreams I never imagined something like this, but here it was, forming a new world before my eyes. Perhaps Destiny Islands itself had started as one of these crystal spheres. Maybe the tree we were standing in wasn't really a tree at all, but merely a branch, part of a much larger tree. Even more exciting, maybe there were other worlds on this tree like this one, waiting to be discovered. Hundreds more, even thousands- who knew how many worlds or how big the tree was that had made Destiny Islands.

"Kairi, come see this.", I said. She didn't answer. "Kairi?"

I heard the sound of crumpling paper from the far corner of the room. "My name" she said, "Is not Kairi."_

* * *

I'm not sure how this will turn out. _

_It's midnight now. We are tending to the sick the best we can. Some of the townsfolk are beginning to cough up bile. Everyone is desperately sick, throwing up. I'm worried about the littlest one, Kairi, but I had to make her sick too. It was her only hope. _

_I've sent Maleficent down to check on the Library. I expected some word from her hours ago, but so far, nothing. Perhaps she has already gone to the Senate. They'll listen to her. I can only hope that she makes them understand how desperate the situation is. How necessary it is that we work together despite our past differences. _

_It is very possible that our creation will destroy us. _

_It seems strange that a week ago my biggest problem was the heartless. It seems almost laughable now. But then again, things never turn out how you want them to be._

It all came back when I read the letter.

I remembered everything that…bastard did to me. To the others. All in the name of his precious revolution. He thought just because he was right, and his enemies were committing horrible atrocities against his race, he could do horrible things to them as well. The things he did to his own kind, his brothers and sisters- and I'm not just talking about the heartless, either.

There are few times I could say I had really been mad. The bad things of the world will pile up on me until I feel hopeless, crushed by the weight of the world. There are still days when I wake up and I can't remember where I am, or anything about me. There are times when I forget who Sora and Riku are. It spirals onto itself and crushes me, the feeling of helplessness, of never getting closure, never knowing who I am. I can be angry because I have no-one to be angry at. Anger needs a target. I just have…nothing.

But then I found a target. A hook in the nothing. And the memories all came back, but it was like jumping in the river and touching the bottom with your feet. You take for granted that its there and you expected to be firm, but instead its slimy and treacherous, shifting beneath your feet. I reached down into the dark waters, expecting to find light, but only found the slime of decayed memories, dark and foul. They shifted benighted my hands like riverbed slime, and I could neither stop their movement nor discover their poisoned source.

I cursed myself for being such a fool. If they were pleasant, why would I have forgotten them? But they were fading, like sand carried in a sieve.

"Kairi?"

"My name's not Kairi."

"What?"

"My name is…my name is…" I kneaded my forehead, but the details kept slipping through my fingers.

"Kairi, are you okay?" He'd dropped whatever he'd found so fascinating before and moved over by me. There was concern in his eyes- but he didn't move closer. I knew that he would never make the first move. I remember watching him spar, and every time he would never strike first. Moving first made you vulnerable. But you know what? I didn't care. I collapsed against him and blinked to keep back the tears. I felt him wrap his arms around my back. I could stay like that forever. Safe in those arms.

"Come on, we need to be getting back." He said after a while. "We need to start looking for a door."

"What makes you so sure they'll be a door?" I asked.

"That shaft was too small to be anything other than for ventilation." He said. "The door must be hidden…" he began to feel along the wall. "or simply darkened from age." He turned to me. "Try and feel for a crack where the door meets the wall. I'll start on this side, you take the other."

* * *

Jesus. Who knew a door was so hard to find? I'd gone over the wall twice, till I found the door's edge. I swear, I haven't seen such a smooth surface since Sora coated the gym in floor wax and we spent an hour watching Coach Mehetabel slip and slide around the gym floor.

Taking out my sword, I wedged it in the crack and pushed, levering the door out of the crack. "Finally." I muttered under my breath, feeling a faint breeze issue from the crack.

There was a man on the other side of the door, but he didn't seem to be entirely…there. I backed up, sword in front of me, and the figure, dressed in brown rags, walked through me as if I wasn't there.

There was a brief flash, a rapid stream of incoherent memories, thoughts and images.

_The darkness is…comforting to me. _

_What do you wish your Midnight to do, master? _

_That's a familiar sound. _

_Another Keyblade…I've gotten the Keyblade for this side. _

_Light, darkness, and a third power…_

_Maybe it's a power even more dangerous than darkness. _

_There are many of us who are worried about the consequences this technology will pose for the future. _

_Could be. We'll never know by staying here. _

_I don't know who you are but… What's happened to me? _

_This new organism, it is artificial in the sense that in the beginning, at least, it will be designed by us…_

_In this dark side where stolen hearts are gathered._

_But it will 'evolve' into something other than its original form…It will be 'alive' under any reasonable definition of the word…_

_It will evolve in a fundamentally different manner- compared to ours, its pace will be extremely rapid…_

_You yourself should be able to feel their hearts. _

_And there is no telling, once it is created, whether or not we can control it, and most importantly, what it will become._

_Truly fascinating. _

_There is no such thing as perfection, only the path toward it._

_Because of this, you are, by you nature, incomplete. _

_In your present state, you probably cannot understand. _

_Something built for perfection must always be incomplete. _

_In any case, the time when we can meet again will doubtless come. _

_I am…a mere shell. We are all…shells. We have no hearts…_

_If I must have a name, you may call me…Nobody. _

I stumbled and fell. The figure became solid again, and knelt by the basin, picking up the glass container and it's tiny world tree.

It turned around and looked at me. I froze.

"Đüán aeksimë? Penëmæ satsuó aneirmía? No wait, that's right, they wouldn't understand Ænir." The figure said, pacing. It raised it's hand to stroke it's chin. Both seemed to be nearly transparent, as if they weren't really there. Was it some sort of projection? A hologram? Or perhaps some kind of bodiless spirit?

"Who are you?"

"Thank you for the compliment. You referred to me as a person. It has been a long time since one of your kind has done that."

"I said, who are you?" I glanced quickly at Kairi. She was edging toward the door.

"Direct, aren't you? I am something that is not supposed to exist. If you must know who I am, the best answer I can give you is that I am a Quintia. The original Quintia." He replied. "And if you do not know who I am from that, then…we are truly screwed."

Another glance. Kairi was almost at the door now. As long as this…non existent person kept their attention on me, she had a chance to make it back through the door and into Destiny Islands.

"Then I guess we're screwed."

"Truly fascinating. This means…you are not complete." He said, and shifted to a fighting stance. "Perhaps a test of your power. But not here. The fabric of this world is too…unstable, too mutable to your kind. A change of scenery is in order."

There was a sickening lurch, an that familiar feeling of a teleport spell- Like throwing a baseball through a window, except what's throw isn't a baseball, it's you, and that feeling isn't glass, but reality breaking. But this time it was different. This time, the glass was a lot thicker- like being rammed repeatedly at a shatterproof glass pane. Then, it felt like being twisted so small and thin as a needle, and being wrung like a rag through a microscopic crack in said glass wall. Then, instead of feeling like you were sailing down though nothingness, it felt like wading through taffy, hard taffy, not that soft stuff. Taffy mixed with Novocaine, mind you, because my whole body began to feel numb.

It was not a pleasant experience.

I came back to consciousness slowly. Everything ached; arms, legs, and brain. Brain especially. I've never claimed to be physic, but right now my brain was throbbing to the beat of the Numa Numa song and my skull will soon crack open like china basin in a gorilla pit. I have foreseen it.

"Sleep, incomplete one. It's past you're bedtime."

Wah?

_(crack)

* * *

_The brown-cloaked figure sheathed the sword whose hilt he'd used to knock Riku unconscious. He didn't fear for the boy's safety- the heartless wouldn't attack this one, even if he were to order them too. There are some forms of protection against which no harm can be leveled, the figure knew.

Besides, there were other, more important matters to attend to.

He could sense the faint beatings of a spectral heart, like the soft coos of doves, from somewhere near. The man strode forward. The ground benighted his footsteps turned black with shadow. Deep inside those shadows, eyes opened, glowing with unearthly butter-yellow light, the color of decay.

Eyes became faces, and faces forms, as shadow Heartless glided into the night. But the yellow of his creation's eyes, the figure mused, could not compare to the color of his first creations eyes; purest gold: brilliant, clear, luminous, flecked with the faintest hints of amber and hazel. It seemed no matter how hard he tried to duplicate those eyes in his other creations, he failed, and was left with only these imperfect reflections.

And so the figure strode into the Secret Place, a man of shadow, a darkness filled with endless, twisted eyes.

* * *

I drew my knees up to my chest and wept. I was lost, cold, and all alone. So alone. I had no idea what happened to Sora, or to Riku. I only prayed that they weren't dead.

I heard footsteps, the crunch of feet on gravel, and I knew someone was coming. I hoped, I prayed it was Sora, but the cold feeling running down my back, the hairs standing on end on my neck, told me otherwise.

It was the man in the brown rags. He stood at the entrance of the secret cave, were it widened from a tunnel into a proper cave, blocking out what little light was to be had from the storm. A flash of lightning lit the night, and it appeared, for a moment, as if his form was edged in blue-white light. But there was nothing comforting about this man's halo.

I bit back a sob.

"Come." The figure commanded. There was magic, dark and foul, woven in the word. shuddering, hesitantly, my body obeyed.

He pulled out a black sword. The blade was wing-shaped, and in the hilt was fixed a green eye- an eye that seemed to bore into my heart, as if it were alive.

The tip of the blade dipped low under my jaw and tilted my chin upwards.

"Tell me, child, what do you remember?"

"Why?"

"I am a person of a curious nature, that is all."

"No. Why did you come here?"

"I came here for you. Tell me" He continued, "Do you remember this blade?"

_I remembered mist and stone. A castle fallen to darkness, a hollow place._

_And I remember a girl, not much older than I am now. I remember when I first saw her, she was in one of the Ænir suits- humanoid, impossibly thin, a weeping face without eyes. But unlike the other suits, this one was dark; a wizard's robe blue, the color of the sky at midnight. Darkness with the promise of light. I remembered the scarf that trailed behind it, blue fading into golden yellow, insubstantial, fading, as if at any time it might be dissolved by the mist of the falls. Had I not been so afraid of this fairy-tale monster I would have chased the tails of that scarf, which seemed to move of their own accord behind the creature, consumed in a dance that defied gravity and common sense. _

_Then she took off the mask and approached us. We saw that she was a young girl, with eyes the color of gold. _

_She drew a sword; jet black, shaped like a wyvern's wing. And she spoke. _

"_Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, Writer of Worlds…" _

And the memory faded.

"Yes." I said slowly. "It was called…Souleater. The girl…Midnight…had it. It made you angry when you saw it."

"It is a relic of a forgotten war." He said. "It can only be given, never taken. If it is taken or found, it devours the heart of the one who took it, hence it's name. But if the one who takes it does not have a heart to devour, It gives them a heart, and makes them wander till the blade is given freely again. It's power is equal to that of the keyblades themselves. But most importantly, it has the ability to remove a heart from a person's body."

Isn't it painful, to know what is about to happen but are unable to do anything about it. I wasn't an idiot not to know what was about to happen when the figure trailed the tip down the indentation of my throat, to my chest, where my heart lay.

"Allow me to demonstrate." He said.

* * *

There was a stabbing, piercing pain, that seemed to radiate from it's source in Kairi's heart outwards, a single scream echoed in the dying throws of a world. If all hearts are connected, if ever there was evidence of it, it was here, now. For in that same moment, Riku was jarred out of his unconsciousness by a familiar cry. Sora, almost on the island, felt a sharp, stabbing pain in chest, sharp enough to take his breath away. But the pain soon subsided, and he rowed toward the island, more determined that ever. And, even if it was for just one moment, all the heartless on Destiny Islands stopped what they were doing, as if the passing of one so filled with light had blinded them.

* * *

It was a strange feeling, dying for the first time. There was no tunnel, no light. Just a lightness, all the sudden, as if someone had removed lead sacks from my arms and legs. I felt like I could just…float away. Float away from it all, all they dying, the darkness, my home. But it was no longer my home. Evil had come, and defiled it's innocence.

Being dead wasn't and worse than being alive. But it was very different. You could say the scope was larger. The view broader.

Someone had thrown open all the doors and the window my life, letting all the light and the outside world in. Destiny Islands rushed away, smaller and smaller in the growing darkness. I now saw how truly small in the grander view of things it was. I was a balloon someone had let go, spiraling upwards into oblivion.

Destiny islands became a tiny pinprick of light, flickering and weak, as I zoomed upwards. Other pinpicks appeared, a thousand tiny stars in the darkness. Eventually I could make out a shape in the dark- a network of shining branches, from which the stars hung like fruit.

Was this what you so longed to see, Riku? Was this the feeling you so wanted to feel? To look down and realize how much you would never be able to comprehend?

But as I spiraled up, I felt the slightest of tugs, an tingle almost, that pulled me back to Destiny Islands with a thud. I couldn't just leave my family, my friends, the two people who I loved the most in this world. Not without some kind of closure, for there sakes as well as my own. I could feel myself fading slowly, the memories slipping away again.

I wondered what would happen once I faded completely away. Maybe there was no heaven or hell, only that view from elsewhere. Maybe I would completely dissolve away, till I was spread thin across the entirety of the universe. A tiny piece of me in everything, living through everything. I think I would like that very much. I would be with my family again, wherever they are. I would be with Sora and Riku forever.

He was cold and wet, scared but still brave, holding on for me. a familiar flash of silver in the darkness. Riku. Blood dripped from a wound in the back of his head and I reached out and touched the ragged wound. It closed up under my fingers. He turned around, eyes wildly searching for the touch her knew well. "Kairi?"

I sighed and leaned forward, giving him the faintest of kisses; a brush of lips, if you will. I whispered a few words in his ear.

"I'm here."

He turned around still looking at me, but the tentative thread was snapping and I felt myself beginning to drift away once again.

* * *

"Kairi?"

_I'm here. _

Just then the shadows began to thicken, to pool into some kind of liquid blackness. Tendrils began to feather outward from the mass, twining around my arms and legs. The darkness was cold as ice.

"Where's Kairi?"

I turned around and saw Sora, staring at me accusingly. "I thought she was with you?"

Yeah, and what where you doing? Running around with a stupid wooden sword, attacking your own shadows? Wait, why am I thinking this? Sora just wants to help us, he's my friend, inept though he sometimes may be…the loss of blood must be catching up with me…

"The door has opened…"

"What?" he said, scratching his head in confusion. He looked at me as if I was stoned out of my bong.

"The door has opened Sora! Now we can go to the outside world!" Didn't he know! God Dammit don't play stupid with me Sora, now's not the time

Oh, wait. I have to tell him first.

"What are you talking about? We've got to find Kairi!"

There he goes, accusing me, as if I just left her somewhere. She's here, I heard her voice! We just have to find her. Maybe the darkness swallowed her up, like when she was little and she was afraid of monsters under her bed. She said the darkness had yellow eyes.

"Kairi's coming with us! Once we step through, we might not be able to come back. We may never see our parents again. There's no turning back. But this may be our only chance. We can't let fear stop us! I'm not afraid of the darkness!"

Everything felt slow and cold. And everything was turning black. The darkness was oozing, crawling everywhere, reaching out to devour my world my home my friend. And I couldn't care less. It was like some part of me was drowning, was being washed away by the seemingly endless sea of black, dark as ink. I was briefly aware of holding out my hand to Sora, but I could remember why. Did I want him to pull me out of the darkness? Or for him to come with me into it. Maybe this way we could both be with her the way we wanted.

* * *

No trees, no storm, no island. There was only a yawning expanse of white that stretched into eternity. But there was something in the light, staying where it's brilliance would blind him to it's shadow. He could almost feel it brushing against his skin.

Suddenly, I felt a hand stroke his cheek. I reeled backwards, realizing that it wasn't the background that was white.

I was blind.

_Special._ the shadow purred inside my head, a though without a voice. _Tell me, my child, how much do you love your friends?_

"You so much as breathe on them and I will hunt you down. You will die slowly, and painfully, begging for death long before I finally kill you."

_When did I say that it was I that would hurt them?_

Coldness spread over my body, and my lungs seemed to tighten, as if they were being slowly frozen. I felt that shadow coil tightly in my brain.

_Sleep, little one. The more you try to resist…the greater the pain will be._

In my blind landscape, the whiteness began to turn dark. The shadow wrapped around me in an almost loving way, and I felt the strangest feeling of falling, falling and knowing that there's no way to stop.

I was no longer afraid.

Maybe I'd never been afraid of the darkness after all.

…

_Kairi is down there somewhere. Shall we go find her?_

…

Lethal Froggie- short little thingie to hold you over till the next chapter. Yes, I finally have the plot settled in my mind, and in the next chapter Octavia appears again.

Disclaimer- I own nothing so far. I can't even say that I own the plot, yet. But soon, yes, very soon, Kingdom Hearts will be mine (_evil laugh_)

Stinky- (_Sigh)_ Dante, bring the tazer.

Thanks to those who reviewed for the last chapter.

Victor Martin


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